A Whole New World
by Takuhino
Summary: A couple of adventurers in Rune-Midgard's most powerful guild are about unwittingly discover a whole new world. And it isn't going to be pretty... Set after Renewal and Third Jobs. But before Morroc is destroyed.


An Archbishop was expected to be elegant and wise, a pillar of emotional and magical support for any party. However, that image can be hard to maintain, undoubtedly so if said Archbishop was currently being pursued by a horde of Raydrics and Abysmal Knights.

"Damn! Why does this always happen when I'm with you Duke?!" The archbishop Kylar yelled.

"How should I know? I'm not the one who goes tripping into a room full of monsters!" Duke the Sorceror replied while he hastily deflected a Raydric's sword with his Oridecon covered book. "Can't you buff me or something? I need Sacrament!"

Kylar called out to the patron saint of words and incantations with his mind, and with a rather theatrical flourish, bestowed the blessing on Duke and himself. "There! NOW CAST!" The pair wheeled around to stand face to face with the monsters. Kylar spread his hands out and effortlessly sent a wave of holy power towards Duke, which coalesced into sparkling forcefields in front of them as Duke simultaneously focused his mana into a concentrated psychic blast, which would stun and hopefully disintegrate most of the monsters.

While Duke's spell managed to wreck havoc against the smaller, weaker Raydrics, it unfortunately proved itself utterly useless against the larger Abysmal Knights who, despite their slow lumbering, managed to corner the two mages.

Kylar was scoffing at this dismal show of magickry. "And you call yourself a sorceror?! Don't you have anything stronger?"

"You're one to talk! I don't see you doing anything against those raydrics!" came Duke's snarled reply. In the time it took for him to recover from casting his previous spells, an Abysmal Knight had already hefted its sword and was about to strike Duke.

A sharp clang filled the air as the forcefield burst into existence and took the blow. In a fit of mild panic, Duke decided to cast Diamond Dust in the hopes that it would slow the monster down long enough for him to get another more powerful spell in. He braced himself for impact as he focused his mana and started to cast, backpedalling wildly in the process. But alas, the spell was taking far too long! Another strike from the Knight's sword shattered his forcefield, but had not interrupted his casting. It may as well have, as Duke realised his spell was far too slow, and the Knight was already readying another strike at his defenceless self.

"Well, this is a rather dramatic ending to my short and miserable life." Duke thought to himself as he watched the blade whistle down. "Just my luck to die with the most insufferable of Archbishops-"

A familiar flash of power shot past his shoulder.

"Adoramus!" Kylar called, as runes surrounded the knight and a mighty bolt of holy power rained down on the unfortunate monster, momentarily stunning it, and at that moment, Duke's spell reached its final stage and the temperature plummeted.

Thousands of tiny droplets of mana rained down on the monsters in the vicinity, freezing anything they touched, effectively turning most of the knights into gigantic flash-frozen sculptures, including the one which was about to chop Duke in half, freezing the blade about an inch above his trembling head.

Making the most of this opening, Kylar leapt forward and delivered a mighty thwack to the head of the nearest monster with his mace, shattering the now fragile foe.

The archbishop was now beside himself with glee."Haha! Take that Duke! I'm killing them!" as he fluttered from one frozen monster to another, delivering more prompt whacks along the way with his mace.

"Hey! Its MY spell that froze them you great buffoon!" the sorcerer muttered as he watched his idiot partner prance among the frozen knights. It was always Kylar that got them into untimely messes, and yet the blasted man had never acknowledged that Duke almost always cleaned up after him. Stupid airheaded Archbishop.

"Haha, if it wasn't for my Adoramus, your spell would not have frozen a fly!" Kylar replied with a half-assed smirk.

Duke begrudgingly agreed that Kylar had a point. But that didn't stop him from imagining himself wringing the life out of that lunkhead. Thank goodness his partner couldn't read minds.

All thoughts of strangling the Archbishop disappeared as a glint of purple amongst the heap of metal caught his eye. It can't be... Was it bradium?

The pair had been tasked with locating a rare mineral which could be used to improve weapons, Bradium, had tracked traces of it to Glast Heim Chivalry, and were trying to cross a narrow bridge to get into one of the more suspicious looking rooms. Unfortunately for them, long flowing robes and a lack of physical agility were a bad combination for crossing perilously positioned bridges. A badly timed jump across some missing boards and the snagging of robes on some nails then caused them to fall off the bridge right into a room full of monsters.

But oh, what a blessing in disguise it had been. They had finally found it! Duke was on cloud nine just thinking about the reward he was going to get for finding the source of the rare mineral. Oh, what riches awaited him when he returned to the guild!

But before either mage can claim any form of reward, they would have to bring back a sizable amount of the ore first.

Which seemed to be only obtainable from the Knights after they were slain.

It sure took a lot of effort to bring down those few knights.

Damn. It was going to be a long day.


End file.
